April 26th 2010 - Foxton

Well its been a while hasn't it! 

I am going to try something now, which is totally out of character, I am going to try and keep this blog short!!!!

The last blog finished off just as we were about to go on holiday.  Our daughter Vicki, having got a temporary fix for her car in the shape of a courtesy car, came and collected us from Debdale Wharf and took us back to her house and we left from there by taxi the following morning at the ungodly hour of 4.45am!!!  However we had an uneventful trip to Stansted and from there a smooth flight to Malaga and eventually arrived at our resort in Mijas, which was lovely.  We had a great week of rest, relaxation, entertaintment, lots of good food and drink and it was really nice to spend the time with our family.  The only thing that marred the holiday was of course the abscence of our lovely granddaughter, Indeia.  Her passport didn't arrive back from the American Embassy until the Wednesday of that week.  Such a shame.

Our original plan had been for Vicki to run us back to Debdale on the Sunday after our return from Spain, however due to her car situation that wasn't possible.  Vicki and Ben had booked the day off work on the Monday to go car hunting and they said they would like Clive to go with them too, so we all went.  They finally ended up with a little white Polo, which hopefully will last them for a while. 

As Vicki had to go back to work on the Tuesday we were a bit stuck with no transport and we had to be up in Huddersfield on the Wednesday evening.  In the end we found a solution.  We hired a car from Cambridge and put Gareth on as the other driver, then the three of us drove up to Huddersfield on Tuesday afternoon, Gareth stayed the night then drove the car back to Cambridge the following day.  In the meantime Clive picked up his TR6 from my brother's place where it had been stored over the winter.  We finally drove back to the boat on Thursday morning, parked the TR in the marina car park and at last we were back on board.

We left the marina on Friday morning and just cruised up to Foxton, which took about 15 minutes!  I managed to get all our holiday washing done in the little launderette and we also got the chance to give the boat a really good springclean.  We also had some visitors over the weekend.  One of Clive's former colleagues, Karen,  happened to be down in Market Harborough and as she had seen my posting on Facebook that we were in Foxton she asked if we could meet up.  We had a lovely afternoon with Karen, her husband Tim and the dog, Peggy, it was great to see them again.

On the Monday morning - April 19th, we had to get the boat back into Debdale Wharf ready for her paint job.  We turned into the marina and then after some canny manoevering Clive got her into the slip way, through the slings, ready to be lifted out.  We were all packed and ready to leave but wanted to wat till she was out of the water before we left.  I have to say it was very strange seeing our home suspended six feet above the water on two narrow slings - a bit scarey really!  However one of the guys, Steve, assured me that they did this for a living and were very good and so far hadn't dropped one!  We watched as they used the pressure washer to clean all the algae and weed off her hull and we absolutely delighted when we were informed that her base plate was in pristine condition and didn't require painting, only the sides needed to be done.  That was excellent news.  I will post photos of the whole event in the gallery. 

We finally left Lady Arwen knowing she was in good hands, piled everything into the TR and headed for Cambridge yet again.  We spent a couple of days there then we drove up to Huddersfield for a few days culminating in a lovely evening out on Friday night at a reunion of my brother Nick's friends from the Huddersfield Motor Club - I haven't seen most of these guys since I was a child - I think they were all quite shocked to see me all grown up!!!

Eventually on Saturday April 24th we got back to Debdale to find Lady Arwen back in the water with a lovely newly blacked hull - she looked very smart!  We had to leave her again on the Sunday, just for the day though.  This time we drove back to Cambridge and went to our son Gareth's house.  Our granddaughter Indei is going to be leaving for her new home in America very soon now and we wanted to see her again, possibly for the last time before she goes.  We had a great time with her and finally said goodbye - it was a very hard thing to do.  However, she gave me her fairy wand to bring back to the boat saying "you can have my wand Granny just so you don't forget me when I'm in America"! Bless!  Still we have to look on the bright side, she will be back here in July for six weeks holiday and we will get to spend lots of time with her then.

We took Clive's TR6 over to a friend's farm not far from where our house is.  He is going to store it for us in one of the barns until we get back to East Anglia at the beginning of July.  Vicki then drove us back to the boat.  We can now get back to some sense of normality at last.  I can't tell you how much we have missed being on board our boat!  It has been lovely being on holiday and seeing the family but it is so good to be home.

This morning we left Debdale Wharf and cruised up to Foxton.  I have put another load of stuff into the launderette and am just waiting for it to finish then this afternoon, hopefully, we will head up the Foxton flight and be on our way South.  The only other thing we have to do now is meet Terry, the guy who is making our pram-hood cover for the stern.  All being well, after all his trials and tribulations (poor man!) he will be doing the final fit of our canopy on Wednesday this week - hooray!

Well - I didn't do too badly at keeping it short did I?  No photos though, the signal is a bit poor here, I will try and put some in the gallery later when we get to the top of the locks.